Your vote counts regardless of where you live. Under the current system
(first-past-the-post)
in many places your vote doesn't count or you're forced to
vote strategically.
Many areas of our country are what the
Electoral Reform Group
calls 'electoral deserts.' These are places where a party has no hope of winning a seat despite
having a significant number of supporters.
If you're in a riding like Medicine Hat and
want to vote Liberal or Davenport
or Rimouski-Témiscouata
and want to vote Conservative you might as well stay home 'cause your favourite party has no hope of getting elected.
Doesn't proportional representation lead to unstable governments?
MMP systems largely avoid the problems associated with many proportional representation
systems. Parties sitting in parliament are required to get 5% of the vote or some number of
directly elected members. The 5% rule effectively limits the number of parties, but ensures
that smaller parties can play an effective role and have an impact. Countries with MMP systems
(eg. Germany and New Zealand) have had strong stable governments.
What is wrong with our first past the post system?
The good example of what can happen is the election result of 1926 in Manitoba.
That year the distribution of the popular vote was:
Conservatives 42.2%
Labour Progressives 19.5%
Liberals 18.4%
Progressives 11.2%
Labour 8.7%
The seat distribution was:
Conservatives 0
Labour Progressives 7
Liberals 4
Progressives 4
Labour 2
Does that look like representation?
Groups with differing interests are forced to
align and strike backroom deals. This is bad because it leads to less
transparency in the political process.
What about more recent results?
A party takes 60% of the popular vote and wins 100% of the seats - New Brunswick election of 1987.
A party has more of the popular vote than another but loses - Quebec election of 1998, BC election of 1996.
A majority in parliament is held with less than 38% of the popular vote - Ontario election of 1990.
If this is such a good idea why hasn't the government taken action?
The parties that can change the system fear losing influence and power. Proportional systems
usually result in coalition governments.